Research: Lowering carbon dioxide could help cut premature deaths

CHAPEL HILL, N.C., Sept. 23 (UPI) -- Abatement of greenhouse gas emissions could save between 1.4 million and 3 million premature deaths in the year 2100, a study by a U.S. researcher indicated.

These findings stress the value of improved air quality, which has previously been underestimated in studies of how reductions in greenhouse gas emissions decrease co-emitted air pollutants.

These findings by a research team led by University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Professor Jason West stress the value of improved air quality, which they say has been underestimated in previous studies of how reductions in greenhouse gas emissions decrease co-emitted air pollutants.

Jason West and his colleagues addressed analyzed climate migration by using global modeling methods, such as future scenarios and newly affirmed relationships between chronic mortality and exposure to particulate matter and ozone, air pollutants indirectly influenced by climate change. They found that between 300,000 premature deaths and 700,000 premature deaths could be avoided in 2030 -- two-thirds in China.

The research and its findings were published in the latest edition of the science journal Nature.